


1991

by levigu



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Abandonment, Abuse, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, One Shot, Starvation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-27 16:25:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14429556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levigu/pseuds/levigu
Summary: Ivan faces the last day of the Soviet Union. Oneshot. Possible RusAme or RusLiet if you squint at it.





	1991

**Author's Note:**

> In this fic, Laurentiu is Romania, Mladen is Bulgaria, Altyn is Kazakhstan.
> 
> Poekhali = "let's go!"

The snow drifted across the Moscow sky, a brief respite from the thick white flurries that had assailed the city for the previous three weeks. Winter had struck unusually early this year, a grim reflection of the mood that had captured the Soviet capital for some time. The Muscovites knew that they were seeing history in the making, terrifying, blood-chilling history.

Things were eerily quiet on the outskirts of the city. One grand and spacious 19th century Byzantine-style house, secluded by a thicket, had hidden a secret ever since the national capital had been moved to Moscow some seven decades previously.

Very few people were permitted to know about the personifications, after all. And the Soviet Union was the sort of place where cold, or hunger, or sheer desperation might drive someone to lash out at someone, anyone, who they felt to be responsible for their drab and fearful existence.

This house was quieter than it had been in some time. Even the wind whistled a little softer in its vicinity, as though afraid of bothering the sole remaining inhabitant. Ivan remained, the last man standing, although it was a miracle that he _was_ still standing, such was the toil recent events had taken on his system. He told himself he'd been through worse, but then things got worse again and again.

They say that when you're facing a major survival threat, your entire life flashes before your eyes, and as Ivan unscrewed the cap of his bottle of vodka, he saw images flash into his head.

He stood triumphant at the Winter Palace in what had been Petrograd, now Leningrad, the red banners of labour waving around him, his two loyal sisters by his side. Natalya was hugging him ecstatically and Ekaterina was literally jumping for joy. They were here to witness the birth of a new world, a free world, and he, Ivan, was the anointed one, the one to bring salvation to the huddled masses.

But decades had passed since that moment, and he could only relive it for the most fleeting of seconds before it was replaced with another image, that of the night in May 1945 when the titanic struggle of the Great Patriotic War had come to an end, when once again Ivan stood victorious, having not only driven out the greatest existential threat he'd ever faced, but also liberated Europe from fascism. His family was reunited, grateful to him as their saviour, and he stood poised ready to carry their revolution to the rest of the world.

Moscow ran out of vodka that night.

But Ivan couldn't revisit that time, perhaps the most jubilant one in the country's history, for long, because that image was dissolving in front of his eyes too, and then the one word, " _poekhali!_ ", echoing around the confines of his mind - the same word spoken by Yuri Gagarin as he made his historic spaceflight. Ivan wasn't just on top of the world, he was soaring over it, looking down on the Earth that it was his divine right to take dominion of, except it wasn't just the Earth now - he had the moon and the stars within his grasp.

It was remarkable how quickly the good times had dwindled after that, and Ivan's high was about to come crashing down. As he poured himself a glass of that familiar vodka - vile stuff, state produced, cheap and nasty but _damn_ it got you drunk - the images that hammered at his mind were replaced with brand new ones.

He remembered how Katya, his beloved sister, had dared to question his call for collectivisation, so when her harvests started to fail, he did nothing, considering it her just desserts for daring to be so selfish when others were badly in need in their new workers' paradise.

"Ivan..." she had croaked out weakly, but he had ignored her. He had to. There was only so much food to go around, after all.

Katya's soft sobs rang in his ears as the scene faded around him, and now they were all hungry, they had been trapped in Leningrad for eighteen months ever since the Nazi Army Group North had surrounded the city. Supplies were running low and Ivan had to be harsh with the food rations, but everyone around him was so ungrateful and blamed him for not doing enough, so is it any wonder if he'd lost his temper occasionally? If he'd thrashed Raivis in his fury, well, the boy would recover. He'd maybe serve as a lesson to the others, as well.

Raivis' whimpers faded out only to be replaced by those of his brother Toris. The brunette was shirtless and bleeding from several long, thin, fresh cuts on his back. He trembled and flinched as Ivan raised his hand to strike again, but he dare not scream, he dare not protest, because he had been shown time and time again just what would happen if he did, and then Toris' face was replaced by Gilbert's, and Feliks', and Erszebet's... it mattered not. They all lacked in gratitude, and they all deserved what was coming to them.

Reality began to reconstitute itself, if only faintly, around Ivan, and he drained his glass of vodka. He really needed it at that point. The memories of his past were like a second heartbeat, pounding in his head like a power drill, and it was as he gave silent thanks for the cloudiness that was setting into his mind again that he saw Gilbert strolling through that famous checkpoint that separated East and West Berlin, out to the capitalist west, and had the nerve to flip him the bird as he went. Ivan was wracked with internal rage. Time was when he'd have dragged Gilbert off to some frozen, forsaken hellhole for pulling something like that, but he was under strict orders to stand and watch it happen.

Then he was watching the others leave, Feliks left, and so did Laurentiu, and Mladen, and all of his so-called allies, and as they did he felt a wave of anger rise up within him, but he was also hit with the realisation of just what _he'd_ done, and how much harm and torment he had caused in the name of an ideal. His stomach began to twist and he felt ready to vomit, but he had to stamp that urge down. He had to appear strong, no matter how much his guys were churning. He had to preserve the union, to show those that remained that he had changed.

And he did. The change in his demeanour shocked everyone around the world. He would no longer keep anyone from the books or music they liked. He would let people criticise him and not react with violence. He showered his remaining family with genuine affection, and couldn't understand why they seemed so afraid of him. He pulled Toris into a tight and even _emotional_ hug and felt a stab in his heart when the brunette tensed up, almost as though he wanted to pull away but dared not.

So much harm had he caused, and he had no way of putting it right. Lucidity returned to him long enough to reach down and grasp what the weapon always carried with him.

The memories flashed before him again, but even though these were the most recent ones yet, they were also the most cloudy and hazy. Toris stood, hand in hand with his brothers, staring right down the barrels of the tanks that had menaced and threatened them for years - and Ivan had pleaded on their behalf for leniency, at what he felt to be great personal risk to himself. The Baltic trio had looked him in the eye, the fires of defiance raging in all three of them, and he hadn't been able to pursuade them to listen. He'd had to turn away, lest they see how much their words stung.

They had been the first to leave the happy little house he had worked so hard to keep together over the decades, but they wouldn't be the last. Their numbers dwindled, but what stung most is when Katya, who he had trusted and loved more than any of the others, gathered some supplies and left in the middle of the night without leaving so much as a note. Ivan had left a fist-sized dent in the wall in his anger, still staunchly refusing to accept how his great experiment was crumbling around his ears.

If anything, Natalya, who had trusted and loved him in a way none of the others ever did, only twisted the knife further by making her own silent departure the next night. Ivan was sinking into the harsh cold waters of reality, and his wrath, no longer permitted to be expressed, gave way to shudders of emotion - before he stamped that down with a dose of vodka.

He had continued to fight in vain to stop the others leaving, but one by one, they did. Altyn was the last, just two endless weeks ago, and Ivan had spent the intervening time in a harsh battle against reality, alternating between violent sobbing and bouts of utter drunkenness, but there was only so long he could fight the onset of truth.

His hands no longer shook, nor was there a tear left in his eyes. He didn't know that this was the Western Christmas Day - those of the Orthodox faith would celebrate it twelve days later, on January 6th - so he was not aware of the irony that he was giving his great rival Alfred such a fitting present.

Ivan remembered all the times the two of them had clashed, over other nations, over the space race, over the ever greater accumulation of ballistic weaponry that had threatened to push the world to the brink of catastrophe - and sometimes not for any reason at all, just because they enjoyed going at each other, because it was so cathartic to do so. He had hated and yet relished every time the two of them would smack heads, because the energy between them was electrifying and repulsive at the same time, and every time they had one of their infamous encounters he would slink away to lick his wounds and swear that it would never happen again, but it did, time and time again, except that now it wouldn't. There was nothing left to fight over.

The Soviet Union would die this day.

With calm hands, Ivan loaded a single bullet into his weapon, and spun the barrel. There were no more thoughts, no more visions, because his mind had caught up to the present day, rewarding him with a peaceful sort of blankness.

The world was growing dim around him now. All the colours had faded, to become as grey and featureless as the cloudy, snowy Moscow skyline.

It didn't matter what Ivan did now. The Soviet Union was already dead.

He pressed the revolver to his temple, and pulled the trigger.

A new Russia was born.


End file.
